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www.ciol.org.uk 22 The Linguist Vol/54 No/6 2015 FEATURES the end of primary school, the beginning and end of the first year of secondary school, and the penultimate year of secondary. We investigated whether pupils who completed the DL programme were more likely to select a language as one of their options at the end of Year 9 and compared their attitudes to languages with those of their non-DL peers. In all phases of the evaluation the teachers who were interviewed were highly enthusiastic about the programme. They gave a variety of reasons for this, including the programme's ability to sustain pupils' interest in the long term; excite curiosity about culture as well as language; and present languages as a means to an end. One of the feeder secondary schools was so impressed by the primary pupils' motivation and achievements that it introduced its own LA programme in Year 8. In the primary schools, teachers felt that pupils' literacy skills had benefited. They drew links between English and foreign language structures and had an improved understanding of metalanguage, e.g. verbs and adjectives. They also had an increased awareness of the origins and meanings of words in English. Latin was cited as especially helpful in improving literacy and in raising awareness of gender, grammar and word order. As one teacher commented, "The pupils now consider grammar and the way language works. In that way, I think it has helped their understanding of the English language." The DL pupils were more likely to enjoy learning a language at Key Stage 4, while those with no primary language learning experience had the lowest levels of enjoyment. A slightly higher percentage of DL pupils opted to take a language GCSE than those who had other primary language experiences, and considerably higher than those with no experience at primary school. Teachers also cited the advantages of the programme in facilitating transition between Key Stages 2 and 3, and in overcoming the difficulties faced by many primary teachers who lack the knowledge to teach languages competently and confidently. They said DL represented a realistic and practical solution to the problems surrounding primary-secondary transition in languages. This was a consistent feature of three separate evaluations. Substantial progress Language awareness programmes appear to offer a practical, sustainable solution for primary schools whose staff are insufficiently qualified to teach a language between Years 3 and 6. Some reservations have been expressed about how such programmes meet the national curriculum requirement that primary schools "should focus on enabling pupils to make substantial progress in one language". 3 What constitutes "substantial progress" is open to debate, but the experiences of those schools offering LA programmes, including those inspected by Ofsted, suggest that a well-managed and well-resourced LA programme does not preclude such progress. See ascl.org.uk/discoveringlanguage for information about Discovering Languages. Notes 1 Hawkins, E (2005) 'Out of this Nettle, Drop-out, We Pluck this Flower, Opportunity: Re-thinking the school foreign language apprenticeship'. In Language Learning Journal, 32,4 2 CfBT Education Trust (2015) 'Language Trends 2014/15. The state of language learning in primary and secondary schools in England' 3 Department for Education (2013) 'The national Curriculum in England. Key Stages 1 and 2 framework document' © SHUTTERSTOCK